Say "no" without guilt

Most everybody is overwhelmed. And they respond with various defense mechanisms. Denial, isolation, increased greed, righteousness. There are a whole set of mechanisms that people use to keep from being open, because the quality of the human heart uncontrolled by the mind is that it will give away everything... We have to find ways to exercise the compassion of our hearts, and at the same moment learn how to know what the limits are and be able to say "no" without guilt.
--- Ram Dass

Greatest dangers

Hatred and malice are the greatest dangers to peace and happiness. In order to prevent hatred and anger from taking root in ourselves, we must first of all avoid discontent, for it is the root of hatred and malice. Once hatred is expressed with all its strength and power, it is very difficult to find an antidote to it.
The 14th Dalai Lame

Take the first step

Love, love, take the first step. Everything depends on love. Even professional success means feeling that life loves us, that our managers, bosses, and colleagues are not enemies.

Lessons from difficulties

Difficulties and obstacles, if properly understood and used, can turn out to be an unexpected source of strength . . . To be a spiritual warrior means to develop a special kind of courage, one that is innately intelligent, gentle, and fearless. Spiritual warriors can still be frightened, but even so they are courageous enough to taste suffering, to relate clearly to their fundamental fear, and to draw out without evasion the lessons from difficulties.
-- Sogyal Rinpoche

This is the way

Seeing only with the eyes,
Speaking only with the mouth,
This is the path the ego enjoys.
To see from the heart,
And communicate from our inner ki,
This is the way of the true human being.
Onyumishi Kanjuro Shibata

How We Greet the Dawn

“To be human is to become visible while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others. To remember the other world in this world is to live in our true inheritance. How we greet the dawn is a measure of the freedom we have made for ourselves.” (David Whyte)

The Joy of Elevated Thoughts

"And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of man; emotion and a spirit, that impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls through all things."
William Wordsworth

A Way of Being

"Knowledge about is not the most important thing in the behavioral sciences today. There is a decided surge in experiential knowing, or knowing at a gut level, which has to do with the human being. At this level of knowing, we are in a realm where we are not simply talking of cognitive and intellectual learning, which can always be rather readily communicated in verbal terms. Instead we are speaking of something more experiential, something having to do with the whole person, visceral reactions and feelings as well as thoughts and words.
(Carl Rogers, A Way of Being)

Wonder, awe, and appreciation

"Our highest potential as a species is our ability to achieve full self-reflective consciousness or knowing that we know. Through humanities awakening, the Universe acquires the ability to look back and reflect back on itself--in wonder, awe, and appreciation."
Duane Elgin

Your work

Our work is to discover our lives and with all our heart give ourselves to it. (Shakyamuni - the historical Buddha)